Publications & Achievements
A Very Long Week, Poetry Games, & A Friday Night Round-Up!
Happy Friday night, friends! This one is coming in LATE, but hopefully some of you night owls are out there reading with me (getting LIT-erary on Friday night, right?). It's been a long week, and I'm exhausted. You might call this the perfect opportunity to talk about...
“A Sleeping Octopus Changes Color While Dreaming” & The Prompt Behind It
"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."---Hamlet A SLEEPING OCTOPUS CHANGES COLOR WHILE DREAMING I can see it up there, high in the corner like a spider hosting its web. This is how my...
“The Hunt for Red [Starbucks]” & A Friday Round-Up
Happy Friday, friends! I hope you've had a wonderful week and have amazing plans for your weekend. Me, I don't have particular plans, but my friends do! On Saturday, one of my friends is celebrating their birthday (shoutout: Happy Birthday, Jenn!), and one of my other...
Celebrate with Me! I’m a Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine!
Happy Tuesday, friends! I hope you're having a wonderful start to your week, because I know I am! Fall is almost here, I've been writing daily, and I just received wonderful news: I'm one of four new Poetry Readers for Muzzle Magazine! I'm so excited. Muzzle's first...
New Poem Tonight: “To the Dark Who Follows Me After My Second Child is Born”
TO THE DARK WHO FOLLOWS MEAFTER MY SECOND CHILD IS BORN:Tell me they’d miss me. Tell me they love me, even on the days when my voice rises higher than the tide. Tell me they believe me when I say I love them to the moon and back—that same moon that pushes and pulls...
“Exit Strategies” featured in great weather for MEDIA’s latest anthology!
Hi everyone, and happy Tuesday! I'm very excited to share that great weather for MEDIA has released their annual anthology, this year's titled Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea. I received my contributor's copy yesterday and am even more pleased to share my...
New Poem Tonight: “Nightlight, a celebration”
NIGHTLIGHT, a celebration3:30 am---brother born, & the air in the house shifts like a pedaled drum. I touch his hair, his skin, & remember your similar textures, the softness. How your eyes, like his, looked to mein adoration---looked to me & saw...
New Poem Tonight: “Light in the Field”
LIGHT IN THE FIELDYou can see our mutual cornflower locksacross the field. When she ran before I could braid it, I look to you as you watch our daughter's hair fly high, & I'm relieved you can see it: her hair turning wide like a sail against the great blue sky,...
Poem of the Day & Reading Posts
A Poem of the Day: Jennifer Jackson Berry
Happy Monday, friends! In an effort to share a little beauty during these difficult times, I’m bringing back my Poem of the Day series. Today: Jennifer Jackson Berry’s “I Lost Our Baby.” Enjoy.
Reading Louise Glück: 4 Days until Halloween
“And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling”
– from Louise Glück’s “All Hallows.”
Enjoy! We have four more days until Halloween!
Reading Rae Armantrout: 5 Days until Halloween
“Haunted, they say, believing
the soft, shifty
dunes are made up
of…” – from “Djinn” by Rae Armantrout. Enjoy! We have 5 more days until Halloween!
A Night of Building a Manuscript & Reading Poetry
Here’s a quick snapshot of my Labor Day weekend! The Good Place, IT, reading poetry, and compiling my poetry manuscript!
Poem of the Day: Meg Day
Happy National Poetry Month! Here’s the Poem of the Day, for the first of the month: Meg Day’s “Hymn to a Landlocked God.” Enjoy!
Poem of the Day: James Wright
Happy Friday! Today’s poem of the day is “A Blessing” by James Wright. Enjoy!
Poem of the Day: Jennifer Jackson Berry
Late to the game today, but here is Wednesday’s Poem of the Day: “Lost & Found Love Poem with Oranges & Trash” by Jennifer Jackson Berry! Enjoy!
Poem of the Day: Linda Gregg
For today’s Poem of the Day, here is Linda Gregg’s poem, “Hard Season.” Enjoy!
Book Reviews & Author Interviews
Journeying Through the Fear Tactic That Is the Subtle & the Severe: Reading Sarah Rose Nordgren’s Best Bones
Before I get started, I have a (positive!) confession to make: I wrote this review four times. I read a lot of poetry, but it’s rare to discover a collection that is unique in its severity, one that equally makes you cringe and keeps you reading with mutual...
Stages of Fear & Domestication: Reading Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience
Click here to see my review of American Galactic. You’ve heard the stories---two children lost out in the woods, little girl in a red-hooded cloak, three little pigs---we all have. And, admittedly, I have “red” many poetry collections (whether or not...
Costume or Skin, A Reckoning: Reading Laura Madeline Wiseman’s American Galatic
Click here to see my review of Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience. We’ve all been there---wondered about life, the afterlife, and whether there could be life on other planets. These are interesting questions, because, to the common wonderer...
Grief as Celebration & Grief as Beauty: Reading Michalle Gould’s Resurrection Party
We all have such differing definitions and expectations of grief. When asked to define grief, love, beauty, we often begin to play a game of word association, or we resort to metaphors and personification. Pain and sorrow. My heart hurts. It’s like a well that...
The Two (or More?) Sides of Friendship: Reading Rufi Thorpe’s The Girls from Corona del Mar
We all have to grow up someday. And some of us are dealt a better hand than others---some during our childhood, others later in life, and even others not at all. But we find a way to persist, to perceive the world and how to function within its barriers. We...
Grief as Meditation, Grief as Art: Reading Meg Day’s Last Psalm at Sea Level
Writing reviews can be extremely difficult. What’s ironic, though, is that I tend to find greater difficulty in writing a review about a book that I loved, rather than one I was unimpressed with. Perhaps this is because I tend to find some angle of merit in...
Moving Forward, Moving Back: Reading Jason Odell Williams’ Personal Statement
We’ve all been there. We reached the final year of high school and discovered the college, the school, the job, the career that we wanted, and we attempted to move forward. We did everything we thought we needed to do---and more---to ensure that we would land...
The Bottom: An Interview with Betsy Andrews
Click here to view my review of The Bottom. Betsy Andrews' book-length poem, The Bottom, was published by 42 Miles Press in 2014 and received the 2013 42 Miles Poetry Prize. Sections of this poem appeared in such places as Kadar Koli, BoogCity, Stone Canoe and...
Past Literary Events
Poetic Donations! #poeticdonations
Hi, all! The holidays are upon us, and for many of us, so is the winter chill (with or without the snow yet), and I have an idea just in time for the holidays that could be beneficial to everyone! Contact me, either over on Facebook or at mcklynntozan (at)...
Tracey Knapp Reading at IU South Bend Tomorrow!
Hi everyone! Just in case you haven't heard, poet Tracey Knapp will be reading at IU South Bend tomorrow night at 7:30pm on the Bridge on the third floor of Weikamp Hall. She will be reading from her first full-length collection, Mouth, published by 42 Miles...
Remembering Herbert Scott
SLEEPING WOMAN ---after the painting by Richard Diebenkorn I’m walking east down Lovell in Kalamazoo in the middle of the afternoon, and it’s hot, July something, and there’s a man...
Tomorrow!! At the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts!!
Everyone! Wonderful news: I have plans for you for your Friday night! As a part of the Greater Kalamazoo Art Hop, the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts will be hosting a reading for their art exhibit, Second Sight/Insight II, which is in its second year of...
Insight from a Dreamscape
“One day when I was really pushing through, writing every last word, it occurred to me there is nothing more wholesome than having great knowledge in literature. You are pure, and insightful, and brave in ways you never imagined when you are intelligent in...
KBAC Poets in Print Series: Tyler Mills & Brynn Saito
Tonight, like every other night, I come to the same conclusion: The Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, and their Poets in Print series, never disappoint. This evening, beginning at 7pm, the KBAC introduced Tyler Mills and Brynn Saito, both with their first collections...
When Dancers Turn to Writing
Tuesday evening, I planned on attending what looked to be an interesting reading. . . but what it turned out to be was an inspirational, uplifting and hilarious multigenre experience. The event was titled “After Dancing: Dancers Turn to Writing,” and for...
On Taking a Year Off
It’s about that time again---the act of road-tripping across a series of states, taking large sums of money for a range of books, getting those books signed by authors, seeing those authors read, attending a diverse set of panels that delve into various levels...